All posts tagged Taro Yamamoto

A letter handed directly to Japan’s emperor by a lawmaker worried about the Fukushima nuclear disaster has drawn criticism from senior government officials that the action may violate the constitutional provision that the monarch is a symbol of the nation in which he is meant to be “reigning but not ruling.”

Upper house lawmaker Taro Yamamoto, who opposes nuclear power, handed a letter directly to the monarch at a party Thursday. In response, the emperor exchanged a few words while handing the letter to a nearby Imperial Household Agency official. The emperor’s comments haven’t been disclosed.

Mr. Yamamoto later explained the letter contained information about those still suffering from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and that he hoped to raise awareness about Fukushima-related issues.

Losing more than half of its seats in Sunday’s upper house election was embarrassing enough for the Democratic Party of Japan. But here’s an added stinger: It didn’t even win in one of its former urban strongholds–the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Japan’s biggest opposition party failed to win any of the five seats up for grabs in Tokyo after a dismal campaign that seemed doomed from the start. The party had two of the seats before Sunday’s poll, but decided to field only one candidate, 49-year-old Kan Suzuki, an incumbent, effectively losing one seat before proceedings had even begun. Read More »

As voters went to the polls for Sunday’s general election, JRT took a peek inside several campaign offices.

The operation and location of election offices are tightly controlled by law. For instance, campaign offices must be more than 300 meters away from the nearest polling station.

JRT also found that while the bigger parties displayed the paraphernalia of traditional Japanese campaigns – from daruma dolls to shrines and endorsements — many of the smaller parties were making do with a lot less. Read More »

Actor and anti-nuclear activist Taro Yamamoto, who recently announced his candidacy in the Dec. 16 lower house election, seems unfazed by the huge challenges he faces. He is “entirely focused” on taking his message to the national stage, he says.

“If I can win, I’ll be able to speak on (live national) broadcasts of parliamentary proceedings,” Mr. Yamamoto excitedly told JRT recently. The 38-year-old actor has been at the forefront of grassroots, anti-nuclear-power protests that have swept the nation since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami that devasted northeastern Japan in March 2011. Read More »

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